Naomi Osaka Calls Jelena Ostapenko’s Comments to Taylor Townsend ‘One of the Worst Things You Can Say to a Black Tennis Player’

Tennis has its coded vocabulary: “composure,” “class,” “education.” Most days these words float by. In charged moments, they can harden into labels.

When aimed at a Black athlete, those labels carry historic baggage. That’s why the phrasing landed like a body shot, and why so many heard more than simple frustration.